


Who dragged the cat in

by wildcursive



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, a crack fic that decided to take itself seriously, filling in the gaps with cats, hints for future ot3 i guess, more like filling in the gaps, mostly canon compliant, not really a rewrite, poe and finn steal millicent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 20:57:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6440239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildcursive/pseuds/wildcursive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe Dameron thinks his capture by the First Order is how his career as a resistance pilot ends. Instead he makes a friend, accidentally kidnaps an important cat and helps save everyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who dragged the cat in

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, hello! Thank you for checking this out! First things first, this fic is 100% dedicated to tumblr/ao3 user bjomolf, without whom it wouldn't exist. This is the result of a ton of Millicent headcanons exchanged with her, my love for Star Wars and cats and watching Inside Llewyn Davis. It was going in a different direction at first, but it kinda got away from me and now I'm thinking it might even result in a sequel. This fic is unbetaed, so any and all mistakes are mine. Hope you enjoy either way!

He is going to die on his second mission for the Resistance. Tied to an interrogation chair and resigned to his fate, Poe wonders whether it isn’t some kind of a record: a commander of two squadrons barely completing his first mission and utterly failing his second one by giving the enemy probably the most important piece of information in the galaxy with barely any resistance. _Ha! Resistance._

The stormtrooper coming to take him back to Ren, most likely for his execution, interrupts that train of thought and Poe starts considering escape options. That consideration only lasts the few seconds it takes for them to exit the interrogation room. The moment they step out Poe sees the troopers stationed at every turn of the short corridors and realizes that even if he could somehow knock out the one that’s holding him at gunpoint, he wouldn’t be able to make it even 3 feet in any direction. The trooper once again startles him by pulling him into an alcove and taking his helmet off, his breathing heavy and the look in his eyes frantic.

“This is a rescue, I'm helping you escape. Can you fly a TIE fighter?”

Poe isn’t even sure he’s not hallucinating, maybe he’s already been brought back to Ren.

“You with the Resistance?” but that can’t be right, Leia told him he would be on his own.

“What? No, no, no!” the Stormtrooper looks genuinely confused. “I'm breaking you out. Can you fly a TIE fighter?”

Poe decides that even if this is a trap, he’s dead either way.

“I can fly anythi-” that’s when he feels something brushing up against his legs and upon looking down finds a ginger cat looking right up at him. “What the kriff?!”

“Kriffing hell, how is she letting you touch her?”

“Letting me? It’s the one that’s touching me! What’s a kriffing cat doing on the Finalizer?” the cat has now started making figure eights around his legs and Poe is suddenly struck by how ridiculous this whole situation has become.

“It’s General Hux’s cat, Millicent, and she doesn’t allow anybody but Hux himself to touch her. Everybody knows that they have to keep their distance,” the trooper explains, disbelief still clear in his voice. “Even Kylo Ren lost a sleeve and some skin the one time he tried to taunt her! We have to get away from her!”

“She’s not wearing a collar, does she have a tracking device implant, do you know?”

“What? Most likely not, didn’t you hear me saying that only Hux is allowed near her. He’s as vehement about people keeping their distance as she is. Why?”

“You’re helping me escape, right? And you’re saying everybody knows whose cat she is. She’ll only draw attention to this place if we take her outside right now and every single Stormtrooper we pass is going to notice her following me. We have to take her with us.”

“Take her with us?! Hux will chase us to the next galaxy for this cat!” 

“They First Order is going to chase us either way!”

“You-” the Stormtrooper seems to be considering it. “You’re probably right.” a slow smile spreads across his face now “And Hux will go crazy, it will be worth it just to stick it to him. We should take her as far away as possible, yes!”

“Okay, escape now, petty revenge later. Help me get her into my jacket and we can be on our way.”

With the Stormtrooper, who carefully avoids touching the cat, helping him, Poe somehow manages to get her nestled inside his jacket, which the other man zips up. Millicent, whose name sounds exactly like what someone with a stick up their ass would call their cat, remains positively neutral to the new development.

With Poe supporting her weight with his still cuffed hands, but somehow managing to look mostly inconspicuous, the two make it to the hangar and into a TIE fighter. Once in the pilot seat he manages to remove the cuffs and take off the jacket. The cat, still looking absolutely undisturbed, settles in his lap and only makes a small noise of displeasure – or maybe mockery – when he can’t detach the ship at first. 

He gives the Stormtrooper a name- Finn. He calls him Finn, which, in his opinion, is a much better name than, say, Millicent. The cat must be able to hear his thoughts, because he can swear he feels her claws through the fabric of his pants for just a moment.

Poe hears the grin in the other man’s voice as much as he feels his own stretching his lips when they manage to take out one of the Finalizer’s cannons. He then turns the TIE fighter back to Jakku

“Where are you going?” Finn protests.

“We're going back to Jakku. That's where.”

“No, we can’t go back to Jakku! We need to get out of this system!”

“I have to get my droid before the First Order.” Millicent lets out an affirmative meow, which, upon future reflection, Poe would deem out of character, what with her owner being the head of the Order. He doesn’t have time for that at the moment, however, so he decides to work with what he’s got. “See, even the evil cat agrees.”

Their argument is short-lived because the next thing Poe knows the TIE is taking a critical hit and they are plummeting to Jakku, the stupid cat’s claws embedded painfully into his thighs. Then everything goes black for a while.

***

He wakes up to scorching heat, sore allover and with an upside-down feline face uncomfortably close to his own. The damned cat seems absolutely okay and totally unimpressed with him still lying in the sand. He eventually manages to get up and dust off. In front of him, but far off into the distance he sees smoke that’s probably coming from their crashed TIE fighter.

“Okay, let’s find Finn,” he murmurs and starts walking.

A few steps later it becomes clear that Millicent has not followed him and has no intention of doing so. Poe considers just leaving her in the desert. She is Hux’s cat after all and apparently she’s as evil as the General himself. But Finn would want him to take her, he decides. So, sighing heavily, he walks the few steps back and leans down. Millicent settles into his arms and Poe sets off to find his new friend.

His quest comes to an end about an hour later when he sees an explosion in the exact spot where the smoke was coming from.

“Finn, FINN!” the damn cat is wiggling in his arms and he wants to drop it and run as fast as he can. But he is still too far away and, even if he wasn’t, his only hope now is that the other man wasn’t still in the TIE when it blew up.

Resigned, Poe drops his shoulders, spends a few minutes calming down the cat and getting her claws out of his shirt, after which he decides to change directions and try to find the nearest settlement.

***

By nightfall they have reached a small outpost where Poe manages to find a subspace comm which he uses to send a message to a nearby resistance outpost, from where it is to be relayed to the General. Some more haggling and a spare set of antenna for BB-8, that he usually keeps in his pocket just in case, provides him with a cot for the night and two rations, along with a tin of water. He wonders if cats even eat this instant food, his experience with them limited to playing with kittens when he was a kid on Yavin-IV. Even if they do, he decides, this particular cat most likely doesn’t, considering who it belongs to and what kind of most likely diabolical lifestyle it leads.

Still, beggars can’t be choosers, so he drops a piece right next to his leg and observes as Millicent pads over to him and examines it. She finally concedes and eats it, but it’s with somehow clearly shown displeasure, despite her lack of humanoid facial features that Poe can read. He throws her a few more pieces and when he’s finished, the plate licked clean, he takes the tin of water and pours some into it then offering it to the dissatisfied animal. Millicent leans down, this time without any deliberation, and when she’s done she looks at him with something that’s less contempt and more condescension.

“I can live with that,” Poe tells her, lying down on the cot.

***

He wakes up to the cat sleeping on top of his head and over breakfast considers how, had he been sleeping on his back instead of his front, he would’ve been close to suffocating because of the damn creature. Nevertheless he once again gives Millicent some of his food and pours her water in his plate.

A small non-descript freighter lands not far away from the outpost a few hours later and Poe, unwilling to waste any more time, takes Millicent in his arms and heads at a brisk pace towards it. As expected, a tired-looking Jessika Pava comes out of the ship and goes to meet him, eyes squinted against the Jakku sun.

“Dameron,” she yells when she is close enough and crosses the remaining distance between them almost running. She envelops him in a hug, seemingly not noticing Millicent trapped between their bodies. “When we got word of your capture, I thought we might never see you again, I’m gla-“

The cat picks exactly that moment to let out an annoyed squeak, deciding that she may have been okay up until this exact moment, but that she’s most definitely not happy with the situation now.

“What the kirff?” Jessika pulls back and takes in the view in front of her. “Where did you find a cat in this garbage desert?”

“I found it on the Finalizer actually.”

“On the Fi- what the- come on Poe, let’s get you home. The heat certainly took its toll on you.”

***

It’s only much later, after they’ve reached D’Qar and Poe’s been patched up and had a hurried meal, that Jessika takes him to the General for debriefing. He recounts everything almost on autopilot: having the map, losing the map, his capture, his questioning, meeting Finn, losing Finn.

“Poe, I know this mission took more from you than anyone could ever ask for.”

“No, it’s fine, I’m fine, I just- I first thought that Finn had been sent undercover to rescue me. I know that’s not how the Resistance operates, but he just- he was so good,” he makes himself stop that thought there.

Leia uses his pause to ask her last question.

“One more thing, Poe. You have yet to explain the cat’s involvement. It has been,” she makes a short pause and purses her lips. “Stressing out some of our operatives in the past couple of hours. Only Pava has been able to get close and by that I don’t mean close enough to touch.”

“Finn told me she s General Hux’s cat, Millicent. She found us while Finn was telling me his escape plan, she was going to draw attention to our location, so we had to take her with us.”

“You kidnapped Hux’s cat and you brought it here, to the Resistance’s main base?”

“We had no choice, General.”

“You could’ve left it on Jakku, Poe.”

“I had to do it, in Finn’s memory, General.” Leia is giving him that sad motherly look he’s gotten well acquainted with in his not very long time with the Resistance, so he rushes to continue. “And it’s all right, Hux can’t trace her. Finn assured me she has no tracking device implant.” Leia still doesn’t look convinced, but she is less apprehensive than before. “Just think about how crazy it’s driving him.”

“Just go deal with the cat, Poe. It seems you are the only one who’s able to.”

***

Apparently going mad with worry over his precious pet doesn’t stop Hux from annihilating an entire star system.

Poe manages to save an unfortunate Snap from being hissed at to death by Millicent, who has taken refugee behind some crates in the hangar bay. She calms down when she sees him and lets herself be lifted and carried hurriedly to Poe's quarters. Poe then runs to the mess, gets a plate of the first meal he deems cat-appropriate and hurriedly drops it off before going to suit up.

***

They fight off the First Order’s forces, the Millennium Falcon makes its escape, BB-8 is back and Finn is not dead, so Poe thinks no one can blame him about forgetting about the enemy leader's pet he left in his quarters.

Finn is once again frantic, he tells Poe all about his new friend who has been taken by the Order and they both run off to the command center to talk to the General. The mission is planned in what seems to be mere moments, everyone springing into action as if this isn’t coming right on the heels of the Takodana rescue. Once his and Finn’s parts in the mission have been confirmed Poe grabs the other man by the sleeve and gently starts leading him out of the excitement of the command center to the now most likely quiet mess hall.

“We have little time, you should eat something, Finn.”

Finn is about to respond when Poe feels the familiar bump of a feline body against his legs. With the Takodana skirmish and everything after the thought of the cat had slipped completely out of his mind.

“How?” he looks down at Millicent who has decided against circling his legs and in favor of sitting smugly in front of the two of them this time.

“Millicent? I should’ve known you’d survive anything.” Millicent lazily moves her tail back and forth in response. Finn turns to him. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d take her with you, Poe.”

“You seemed very keen on sticking it to Hux. That was the only part of the mission I was able to complete at the time.” Finn’s still looking at him, something soft in his eyes, but apparently not knowing what to say, so Poe quickly adds, “But I took her to my quarters before the Takodana mission. I have no idea how she was able to get out.”

“You shouldn’t trust her, take out Hux and Kylo Ren and she’ll probably find a way to command Starkiller in their stead.”

Millicent lets out a meow that Poe would almost call innocent, a “Who, me?” in answer to Finn’s accusations.

“Don’t act innocent, you diabolical creature. I bet you thought I died and celebrated it. Well I didn’t and now you’re a prisoner of war, while I’m free of the Оrder and in control. I’m in control now, do you hear me?”

Poe is not there several hours later when Finn makes a similar monologue while looking straight into Captain Phasma’s menacing mask. For now he tells Finn to stay put, grabs the cat and jogs to his quarters. The door is still locked and he has no time to check for other possible escape routes, so he places Millicent on the bed and looks straight into her eyes.

“Okay, listen, I would meow at you if I wasn’t sure you can understand everything I say either way. I need you to stay in this room or you’ll never see your owner again. Even when we defeat and capture him, we’ll be keeping the two of you as far away from each other as possible.” Millicent doesn’t react. “Look, just stay here for a couple of hours, okay? I’ll go ask the requisitions officer for top quality cat food when I’m back.”

Millicent, still staring at him, settles more comfortably on the bed in response.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Poe decides, turning to the door. “Not like I have any other choice,” he murmurs to himself after it closes behind him.

***

Starkiller costs them too much. Over half of his pilots don’t make it, Leia loses Han and he almost loses Finn. Still, the Resistance survives, the map to Luke Skywalker’s location is finally whole and, when he returns to his quarters, Millicent is still right where he left her. Small miracles, Poe thinks.

Finn is still in a medically-induced coma three days later, when Poe goes to once again stop Millicent from bullying Snap in the hangar bay. With her in his arms he decides to walk around outside for a bit before going to the med-bay. He spots Rey sitting under a tree with her legs crossed. She is examining what Poe assumes is Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber. He has seen only glimpses of her around the base in the past days and they haven’t spoken since their first short meeting in the command center, so he decides to approach her. She puts the lightsaber aside and looks up at him.

“Is that it, the cat you stole? Millicent?” she asks instead of a greeting, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“I think both Finn and I would prefer calling it being pressured into taking a hostage by the circumstances,” Poe answers with a grin and puts Millicent on the ground so he can sit under the tree across from Rey.

“Doesn’t look like a hostage situation to me.” she says, gently extending a hand towards the cat. “Though, this is the first time I've seen a real cat. Finn said that it seems like orange pets have an affinity for you. I told him that had BB-8 heard him, he would have gotten shocked again.”

Poe is wondering whether to tell her she’s right or offer her the reassurance that Finn will be alright, which she actually needs. Millicent saves him from having to make that choice by bumping her head into Rey’s hand, making her the third person in his knowledge that has been allowed to touch her.

“How is she letting you do that?” he asks, startled.

“I’m not really doing anything, it’s doing all the work.” Rey is smiling fully now, turning her hand to scratch between the cat’s ears and lifting her head to look Poe in the eyes. “I’m leaving to find Luke Skywalker today.”

“I know.”

“You will look after Finn, right? And the cat?”

“I don’t think she needs anyone to look after her, but I will.” he reaches to grasp the hand Rey is not petting Millicent with. “You take care of yourself, Rey.”

“I will.” she squeezes his hand, gives Millicent a final scratch and leaves them to go prepare for her mission.

***

It’s a week later that a now mostly healed Finn groggily wakes up while Poe’s reading on a datapad in a chair next to his bed, Millicent in his lap. She jumps to the floor when the medi-droids barge into the room. Poe stays by Finn’s side despite the droids insisting he should leave. After a slew of check-ups, excited babbling and even a few hastily wiped tears of happiness, Finn notices the cat sitting in a corner.

“I’m surprised Millicent’s still here and Hux hasn’t found another way to destroy us for taking his precious pet.”

“You will be even more surprised when you learn that she also let Rey touch her.”

“If there’s anyone that can turn this creature away from the dark side, it’s surely Rey, Poe.”

“Yeah, I know, buddy,” Poe answers with a grin.

There might be hope for them all yet.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this. If you're so inclined, leave me a comment or check me out on tumblr @aro-hawke


End file.
